Motorola Charm Review: A Comprehensive Look

The Motorola Charm is a feature phone that's sure to bring back memories of the good old days. It's a simple, no-frills device that's perfect for those who just want to make calls, send texts, and listen to music.

With a 2.4-inch QVGA display, the Motorola Charm is easy on the eyes and offers a clear view of your contacts, messages, and music library. The phone's compact design makes it easy to slip into a pocket or purse.

One of the standout features of the Motorola Charm is its long-lasting battery life, which can last up to 25 days on a single charge. This is thanks to its power-saving design and efficient hardware.

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The Motorola Charm is an affordable Android phone that packs a lot of features into a compact design. It has a 2.8-inch touchscreen display with a QVGA resolution of 320 x 240 pixels.

The phone is powered by a 720 MHz TI OMAP3410 processor, which provides smooth performance for everyday tasks. It has 113 MB of internal storage, but you can expand it up to 32 GB via a microSD card slot.

The Motorola Charm has a 3.5mm audio jack, making it easy to connect your favorite headphones. It also has a 3-megapixel camera with CIF video recording at 24 fps.

In terms of connectivity, the phone supports HSDPA 3.6, Wi-Fi 4 (802.11 b,g,n), and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR. It also has a micro-USB port for charging and data transfer.

The phone's battery life is decent, with a maximum talk time of 5 hours and a standby time of up to 334 hours.

The Motorola Charm has some impressive features considering its budget price. It packs a Texas Instruments OMAP3410 Cortex A8 CPU running at 600 MHz.

The phone also comes with 512 MB of RAM, 512 MB of internal memory, and a capacitive multi-touch panel that's commendably sensitive. It's a great combination for a seamless user experience.

You'll also find an accelerometer, dual microphones for noise cancellation, a laptop-esque touch pad on the back called BACKTRACK, Bluetooth, A-GPS, Digital Compass, and 802.11n WiFi. These features are typically found in more expensive devices.

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The phone also includes a 2 GB microSD card, a standard battery (1170 mAh), and an extended battery (1370 mAh). This is a thoughtful touch, allowing you to choose how long you want your battery to last.

The Charm's display is a 2.8" QVGA (320 x 240) resolution, which is a bit on the low side but still usable.

The Motorola Charm's display is a bit of a letdown, especially when viewed in its natural orientation. The screen looks much better when turned 90°, but even then, it has some issues with viewing angles and brightness.

The display's size is also a problem, as it's quite large and has a low DPI, making small text difficult to read. You'll need to bump up the text size, which reduces the amount of information on the screen and requires more scrolling.

The camera is another area where the Charm falls short. It's a 3 MP, fixed-focus shooter that takes surprisingly crisp photos, but colors tend to be grey in low light and the sensor can struggle with exposure levels.

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The Motorola Charm's display is a decent addition, but its compact size can make it tricky to use, especially with Android's touch OS.

The phone measures 3.87″ x 2.65″ x 0.45″ and weighs 3.9 oz, making it a relatively small device.

The 320 x 240, 2.8″ capacitive touch screen is a nice feature, but its QVGA quality is somewhat stunted.

This small screen size can lead to mistakes when trying to press tiny links, especially in a touch OS like Android.

The compact display looks better when turned 90°, but even then, it's not ideal for an extensive touch OS like Android.

Viewing angles are almost non-existent when held in the natural orientation, making it difficult to see the screen clearly.

Turning the phone 90° improves the viewing angles, with blacks shimmering less and colors looking more solid.

The screen's size is a contributing factor to the viewing angle problem, as it doesn't make much of a concession to the notion of bezels.

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The camera on the Motorola Charm is a 3 MP, fixed-focus shooter that's easily accessible from the keypad. It's surprising how crisp the snaps come out, even without auto focus.

You can take photos with a single press of the camera shortcut button, and there's also a geotagging feature that adds location information to your photos. The stills camera mode has an auto-panorama function that stitches photos together as you pan.

The camera's sensor can struggle with exposure levels in dimly-lit images, resulting in greyish colours. But on the bright side, you can instantly apply a Kodak Perfect Touch filter to increase saturation and contrast.

Filming with the Charm is a bit of a letdown, with video recorded at CIF quality (352 x 288 @ 30 fps) that looks pretty blocky. It's a shame the camera didn't reach VGA quality to make it more suitable as a pocket cam.

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The Motorola Charm is a solid choice for anyone in the market for a reliable flip phone. It's available in a range of colors, including sleek black, vibrant blue, and bold red.

This phone boasts a compact design, making it easy to slip into a pocket or purse. Its flip design also protects the screen from scratches and damage.

The Motorola Charm features a 2.4-inch display, providing a clear and crisp viewing experience. It's perfect for checking emails, browsing the web, or watching videos on the go.

With a battery life of up to 14 days on a single charge, you can go without worrying about running out of power. This is especially useful for those who are always on the move.

The phone also comes with a 5MP camera, allowing you to capture high-quality photos and videos. Its advanced camera features make it a great option for those who want to take their mobile photography to the next level.

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The Motorola Charm's performance and battery life are areas where it falls short. Battery life on the phone is disastrous, even on standby, where I've seen it drained in a matter of hours (6 – 8).

Cell standby makes up for over 30% of the battery usage on the Charm, according to the Battery Manager in Android. This is a significant contributor to the phone's poor battery life.

To make the most of the battery, it's a good idea to take advantage of the extra battery that comes in the packaging, which can help extend the phone's life.

The Charm runs Android at a 320 x 240 resolution, which is lower than usual, but it didn't cause too many problems with app compatibility.

Motorola has included a few additional applications, such as the Happenings app, which gathers all your SMS, Facebook, and Twitter communications into one stream.

The 3D gallery is a custom addition, similar to Apple's CoverFlow music browsing interface, and functions quite fluidly.

The music player has playlist and shuffle support, as well as FM radio, ShoutCAST radio, and SoundHound track recognition.

The Charm's display orientation was a bit of a limitation, as many apps won't run in landscape mode, including Speed Test and ShootMe.

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MotoBlur, the Charm's user interface, wasn't too annoying once I set it up, but I did have to remove some pre-installed bloatware with root permissions.

The grey, black, and red tones added to Android by Motorola are actually quite nice, and I liked the customization options that came with it.

Battery life on the Motorola Charm is disastrous, even on standby, with the phone draining in a matter of hours (6 – 8) on standby alone.

Cell standby makes up for over 30% of the battery usage on the Charm, according to the Battery Manager in Android.

The extra battery that comes in the packaging suggests that the phone's battery life is a major issue, one that requires a solution like a spare battery.

The Motorola Charm is available on multiple carriers, including Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T. It's worth noting that availability may vary depending on your location.

Sprint offers the Motorola Charm for $99.99 with a 2-year contract, while Verizon offers it for $99.99 with a 2-year contract as well.

Verizon's pricing plan includes a 2-year contract, which may not be the best option for everyone.

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The Motorola Charm had its fair share of criticisms and drawbacks. One major issue was its short battery life, which was a significant drawback for users who needed a phone that could last all day.

The phone's small screen size was also a point of contention, making it difficult to navigate and enjoy multimedia content. It measured only 2.1 inches diagonally, which was a far cry from the larger screens of its competitors.

Another issue was the phone's limited storage capacity, with only 128 MB of internal storage available for users to store their music, photos, and other files. This was a significant limitation, especially for users who wanted to store a large music library or take a lot of photos.

The Motorola Charm's lack of Wi-Fi connectivity was also a notable drawback, making it difficult for users to stay connected to the internet when they were away from a cellular network. This was a significant omission, especially for users who relied on Wi-Fi for their daily internet needs.

The phone's proprietary music format, known as the Motorola MP3 player, was also a point of contention, as it was not compatible with other music players and required users to purchase Motorola-specific music files. This was a significant inconvenience for users who wanted to play their music on other devices.